Olive egger breeding question

[sonew123]

Hi all-Ill be getting some olive egger eggs in a few weeks from a frined from here and I have a stupid question because Im still learning so much. So lets say out of a dozen eggs I get 8 to hatch?? Now if they all come from olive egger eggs-will all the pullets produce the olive eggs? The rood should throw them to his offspring too right-if I breed him to lets say BO's or Cinnamon queens will their offspring pullets throw olive eggs??? Or only the pea combed ones??? wow I dont kow why buy genetics is frying my brain just when I thought I had a grasp!

 

[BeardedLadyFarm]

I don't know what your OE's are "made" of, but likely a dark egg layer (marans/welsummer) and a blue or green egger (EE or Ameraucana).

To answer your first question, will the pullets from your olive eggs also produce olive eggs? Maybe. That depends a lot on what daddy was. Those with pea combs will have retained at least 1 blue gene, and will at least give you green eggs. If there are enough other dark brown genes between the parents, they will tend towards olive.

If you have an OE roo (with pea comb), and you cross him to a standard brown egg layer (BO, Sexlink...) about half of the chicks will get the blue gene, and will lay green to olive eggs. There's no guarantee how dark they will be, since normal brown eggs don't have the extra dark coatings that ultimately give the olive appearance to the egg. Crossing back to a Marans or a Welsummer and raising the pea combed chicks would be the best way to get darker and darker olive eggs.

It should be possible to create a pure breeding line of olive eggers, but it's tricky to tell which birds are carrying one blue gene, and which are carrying two, as they would all lay the same colored egg, or have pea combs in the case of roos. Ideally all birds in the flock would have 2 copies of the gene so that it would always be given to each generation. Even after the blue genes are stabilized you would probably have to continually select for the darkest eggs, like the Marans breeders do.

I have a cute little Cuckoo Marans over Blue Ameraucana pullet. I can't wait until she's big enough to lay! Good luck!

Bailey

 

[sonew123]

um roo is a maran mom is an amaracauna-sorry I left that out. that you for the well informed answer...Not sure what I will do once they hatch but Id like to have at least 1 roo and the rest pullets-hey I can dream can't I???? LOL...

 

[BeardedLadyFarm]

Sounds like daddy is an Olive egger too (if he could lay eggs) and obviously mama is too, since you have the olive eggs to show for it.

They each have one copy of the blue gene, SO (here's where it get's fun) you will get APPROXIMATELY from your eggs
25% with 0 blue genes (will likely have straight combs. they may have enough Marans in them to lay a darker brown)
50% with 1 blue gene (likely pea comb, and olive eggs)
25% with 2 blue genes (likely pea comb and olive eggs)

It's that last 25% with 2 blue genes that you would ideally isolate to make "pure" breeding OE's. That takes lots of trial crosses to straight combed birds to figure out, along with lots of pens and record keeping.

Of course these stats are based on hundreds of chicks, not a dozen, so just pray for a couple pea combed pullets. They should give you what you're looking for.

 

[sonew123]

Quote:
wow-as Im getting an ice pack for my fried barin!! SO out of these chicks Ill get I need to hatch out pea comb pullets-I would keep all pullets anyway-hens are a downfall with all their fluffy butts and such-but I would need to really decided which roo to keep to mate with the sisters? Is insest ok in this breeding scheme?

 

[BeardedLadyFarm]

Do you know if the parents of your eggs are siblings? Even if they are I think you can breed siblings to each other for at least a couple generations without getting into trouble. Especially since the parents are recent hybrids (mutts) themselves you should have a nice mix of genes going on. If you want to keep it fresh keep putting some Welsummer or Marans roos into the mix, and select the pea combs.

 

[sonew123]

Quote:
The paren should not be related- but I do plan on getting a maran or wellsummer roo this Spring to keep these olive eggers coming-